Premier Rachel Notley vows to push hard for promised flood money from Canada’s next prime minister, along with relaunching efforts to discuss climate change with the incoming federal Trudeau government.

As prime minister-designate Justin Trudeau told reporters in Ottawa on Tuesday that his Liberal majority government will consult with the premiers on its climate change strategy, Notley said she will look to discuss Alberta’s need for enhanced flood mitigation.

Southern Albertans are hoping for more than $1 billion in federal funding tied to 2013 flood relief and an outstanding request for cash for future prevention measures — an issue Notley said she was pushing with Conservative Prime Minister Stephen Harper earlier this year.

“There’s no question flood mitigation is a major issue, I raised it with the former prime minister when we met last summer, not only flood relief but also flood mitigation efforts — there are major investments required on that one,” Notley said.

“We have a very long list of infrastructure priorities … but without question they will hear about flood mitigation very quickly because it is outstanding and it’s not the kind of thing you want to wait on.”

Over the summer, the premier said $600 million was requested from Ottawa for flood mitigation projects across the province, a federal funding pot that Notley also said still needs to grow.

The provincial government is currently considering four dam or diversion projects in southern Alberta with a potential price-tag exceeding $1.3 billion.

According to the Environment Department, another $495 million is still owed for disaster relief, money used to help families recover their losses from the 2013 flood.

In June 2013, southern Alberta suffered up to $6 billion in damages from the worst disaster in the province’s history, killing five people and displacing 100,000 people.

Flood mitigation is only one of several hot-button issues now on the horizon for the Notley government as it deals with the incoming Trudeau government. Other key files include energy policy, development of oil export pipelines, a new climate change policy and infrastructure funding.

Dave Hancock, former Tory premier and Alberta’s former intergovernmental affairs minister, said he sees flood relief as an important priority that a new Liberal government would be wise to pay attention to.

“It would be perilous for the new federal government to avoid that,” he said.

Still only a few months into her own leadership, Notley told reporters Tuesday she looks forward to working with the new federal government and will urge Trudeau to deal with infrastructure investment and climate change.

But when asked about specifics on pipeline development to help get Alberta oil to global markets, Notley was non-committal, saying she wants to look at the province’s environmental record first.

“One of the key things we can do as a province, that we’ll have more support for from the federal government, is to ensure we do our homework in terms of our environmental record and our climate change strategy,” she said.

“Then we can talk about social licence so people can see the economic benefits of our export and that they’re not lost in a different discussion.”

On Tuesday afternoon, Trudeau reiterated his party’s commitment to emissions reduction, telling reporters he is already engaging in conversations with all premiers on climate change and attending the United Nations Climate Change Conference in Paris next month.

But he would not yet say whether he has a specific emissions reduction target.

“I will be engaging with the premiers in the coming weeks to establish a strong position for Canada so people know that Canada’s years of being a less-than-enthusiastic actor on the climate change file are behind us,” he said.

Trudeau added he wants to continue to build bridges to the West, a part of the country that felt alienated by previous decisions of the Liberal government under his father, former prime minister Pierre Trudeau.

Kent Hehr, a former Liberal MLA who was elected in Calgary Centre on Monday, added there is a role for government in getting behind the Canadian energy strategy and building a consensus on pipelines and access to tidewater.

“I have every confidence that the Liberal party understands that getting our product to tidewater is in the national interest and we will see both energy and the environment are two sides of the same coin,” Hehr said.

“It’s not rocket science. Moving bitumen by pipeline is the safest, most efficient, most effective way to get our product to market and it’s in the national interest — and having a voice at the table that discusses these issues in a regular ongoing manner, I think is important for the country.”

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